I'm Allana and since 1.09 of Diablo 2 when I first made a Zoomancer (something like 16-17 years ago?) I've been a fan of summoning/pet builds. Most of my characters in Path of Exile has been summoners at one point in time and since Breach started, I've played a lot of different golem builds. Here in I will share the different builds I've played (and still play) while highlighting what's good or bad about them and recommend a build for you, depending on your circumstances (ranging from starting the league with nothing to your name on day 1 to 100 ex investment, I got you covered)

[Necromancer] League starter flame golemancer, eventually progressing to CI (no budget at start)

Spoiler

This character is what I started Breach with and eventually played up to level 93. Most people think golems aren't viable at all without the expensive jewels, but they can do the job and will work adequately. Later on when you do get the jewels, you'll just do the content faster.

Since this is more of a leveling guide, I'll notch down here what you should aim to get asap with your currency.

First buy: 2x Clayshapers. These maces are fairly common and will likely only cost a couple of chaos at best, even at the start of a league. Getting two of them early allows you to start using your golems for damage that much sooner. Try buying 2 before you hit level 41, which is the required level.

Second buy: Golem jewels. Now, the might (which you need 2 of, to get anima stone) is fairly rare compared to the others, and thus more expensive. At the start I would recommend you to get 2-4 primordial harmony jewels, depending on your budget. This is because they add a ton of damage and you'll utilise them eventually in the build regardless.

Third buy: Tabula rasa. Bit more expensive but I would suggest either farming for it (Act 4 aqueducts) or trying to buy one semi early. I got lucky and found one at level 30 or so, but it will make leveling that much easier and you can wear it all the way until you manage to get a 5-link ES chest later on.

Fourth buy: Save all the currency (including all jewellers, fusings etc - don't use it on ANYTHING) and turn it into chaos / ex. Next is going to be the primordial mights. These are as you know quite expensive, so save up for them. I personally like saving unidentified rigs, amulets etc and do the 2 chaos recipe early in a league. Some say it's not worth it, but it's a quick way to make a lot of chaos early on, especially since most rares you find aren't useful any way. Identify good bases still.

Besides the aforementioned items, just wear whatever rares you come by that give you life/resist/stats that you need until you are able to make the move to CI. I wouldn't recommend attempting to go CI before you have anima stone and primordial might though, so stick to life/es hybrid in the meantime

You also want to get the following: 3link weapons do cast when damage taken + immortal call. Try to get a flame dash somewhere, level it to 20 and convert it to level 1 with 20 quality. Adding, you need the following gems:
Desecrate
Convocation
Arc + spell totem OR Arc + curse on hit with flammability + either elemental weakness or enfeeble

[Necromancer] Flame golem lowlife magicfinder (mid-budget)

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Gear

Spoiler

Character is called 'Adelich' if you want to take a look.

Note that I made this character in standard and thus it has some legacy item quantity items. Obviously you cannot get these in a temp league, but the only difference will be the amount of quantity you have, not really the defensive/offensive stats. I use an item quantity gem in the chest as well so it's effectively a 5-link for the golem, if you want more MF you can do item rarity, otherwise another dps gem such as fire penetration is recommended)

Primordial harmony x4
Primordial might
Anima stone
Energy from within (at the life/es cluster just right of Witch Start)
Careful planning (to the far left of the templar area, to get more Dex to run auras)

Due to getting almost no stats from gear, we have to take a lot of notables on the tree and even run a jewel converting some int to dex. This build does not get 10k+ es but rather around 7k with decent gear. This however is perfectly fine for most maps due to running defensive curses in a blasphemy setup, both temporal chains and enfeeble.

This character can run the higher level maps however for boss fights I recommend swapping out the Aesthetic necklace for an Eye of Chayula/Presence of Chayula. If you play hardcore I would always use one of these necklaces because of how unbearable getting stunned is.

My league ender for Breach. Can easily do shaper deathless along with hard content such as T16 maps. Uses 4 flame golems, 1 ice golem and 1 lightning golem. The support golems are linked to item rarity culling strike, for that extra bonus.

The build has a purity of elements slotted but it's only used for elemental weakness maps. Without it active, we have the ability to recast flame golems which is helpful for prolonged boss fights where they might die. On maps where we need both extra resist and the ability to recast golems we simply turn off the blasphemy temporal chains instead.

This build is exceptionally good at clearing maps and pretty good for most bosses. Hydra is hard due to being poison immune but minotaur and phoenix are no real problem. The strength in the build is clearing maps rapidly though, and it's very enjoyable for that. Adding to, you have ridiculously strong auras so you can simply tag along as a support in any group as well.

I no longer have the Bow but it's pretty easy to craft one yourself: Get a 6-linked short or crude bow (there's a divination card for short bow, a complete bow sells for like 20c) and then use a shrieking essence of Rage on it. If it has 2 empty slots aftewards, 1 prefix and 1 suffix, you'll be ok. Then you need to craft 'cannot roll attack mods' (Catarina level 8) and then use 1 exalted orb on the bow, to get +1 gems. Total cost 2 ex, 20c for the bow and x chaos depending on how many essences you need to use (I needed to use one)

Hi!
Thx for your topic, its really useful.I decided to make a golem build, but dont know what would be the best.If i go for LL or CI.I would go with CI if i honest but dunno what does it cost.I have now 22 exalts and nothing, really nothing from the gear.Will that be enough to make CI or should i go for LL?I made already a warchief totem, tried the abberath stampede build, then a duelist lacerate and now the last was another berserker, so CI is far away from me.Dunno the prices (i know that they are sadly expensive), but i definetly need a build what can do shaper all day long and the guardians too.Thx for your help.

Hi!
Thx for your topic, its really useful.I decided to make a golem build, but dont know what would be the best.If i go for LL or CI.I would go with CI if i honest but dunno what does it cost.I have now 22 exalts and nothing, really nothing from the gear.Will that be enough to make CI or should i go for LL?I made already a warchief totem, tried the abberath stampede build, then a duelist lacerate and now the last was another berserker, so CI is far away from me.Dunno the prices (i know that they are sadly expensive), but i definetly need a build what can do shaper all day long and the guardians too.Thx for your help.

Honestly idk the prices because i didnt do ci in this league.But i crafted some "not bad" ES items and sold them for pretty insane prices.And CI was always (ok maybe not always but last time) meta, everybody looks for high es stuffs.But when u say, pure es is cheaper then i go definetly for it, not for hybrid. :)

Honestly idk the prices because i didnt do ci in this league.But i crafted some "not bad" ES items and sold them for pretty insane prices.And CI was always (ok maybe not always but last time) meta, everybody looks for high es stuffs.But when u say, pure es is cheaper then i go definetly for it, not for hybrid. :)

Hi!

The biggest difference in cost would be the chest armour - lowlife requires a shavs. The cheapest 6-link as I type this is listed at 450 chaos or 9 exalts.

Aside from that, the items you want in general are pretty much the same. I would say it like this though: If you want to play elementalist, I would go for CI. If you want to be necromancer, I would go lowlife. That's my general rule of thumb, as with Elementalist you won't have as many auras (I only use discipline on mine) since they don't provide the big extra benefit that necromancers get due to Commander of Darkness.

However, if you go lowlife you'll want a presence of chayula as well and that is really expensive right now, around 7 ex. Comparatively, you can buy a 6-link ilvl 84 vaal regalia for something like 4 ex and with about 100 chaos you "should" be able to roll it to be 700+ ES (no guarantees, rng is rng)

So pure ES is probably cheaper and gives a larger buffet of HP for less currency investment. Personally I would say my so far strongest boss killing build has been the elementalist Hexagolem (Shoutouts to Thorwulf!) and you can do the same a bit more budget friendly by using 2 curses instead of 3. Saves you needing a level 4 enlighten too, level 3 is enough (which costs like 20c)

Hey! Could you please recommend some skills with which to level that first golemancer build? I'm at 36 and I feel that it's going too slow.

Hello!

Sure thing, before you actually get the ability to use multiple golems (you can get 3 at level 41 with 2x clayshapers, but the golem jewelry has no level requirement (aside from 34 which is the golem skill requirement). What I usually do is use bladefall or blade vortex until I get high enough level to equip golem gems. My plan for 2.6 will be to try to get ahold of 2x clayshapers and a tabula rasa as soon as possible, because 3 golems in a 6-link tabula provides really good leveling speed, even without any of the expensive jewels

As such, I would just toughen it out with some spell gem until level 41 and at that point use double clayshapers and you should notice a nice breeze once you get into cruel difficulty